Not that Ronan would say so out loud, but it was a really nice day. The weather was starting to cool down, the first hints of fall kicking in, and he hadn't thought about nightwash in at least two days. The market was running smoothly again. The farm looked down right idyllic with the setting sun smearing pinks and purples on the horizon. With the market closed down for the night and all of Ronan's end of the day chores done, he was looking forward to a shower and a big fucking dinner, and probably curling up on the sofa with Adam and whatever homework his boyfriend had.
He spotted the man in question on the porch and made his way there with a tired smile slipping easily into place. Of course, he only got as far as the top of the steps before "disaster" struck.
"Kerah!" Opal thundered up the steps, holding her hand up to him with all the drama of a severed stump. It looked like a regular hand but what did Ronan know.
"What, creep?"
"It hurts!"
Ronan frowned and crouched down on a knee next to her, carefully lifting her hand closer to his face. The porch light wasn't on yet, but there was just enough sunlight left to figure out that a solid splinter was in her thumb.
"Well, shit. You're lucky to be alive," he joked. As sharp as his words always were, he was gentle as he squeezed the splinter out of her thumb. Not that she cared about the tenderness with how she wailed. "Alright, alright, shut up. It's gone. You'll live to annoy another day." With that he lifted her fingers towards his mouth and made like he was going to bite them. Opal squealed a laugh and jerked away.
There was comfort in routine. Given the last few weeks in Vallo, a market day was the closest they were going to get to one. It was nice to let his mind go on auto-pilot after a long day, scooping up tablecloths and folding up chairs until the next time. He was a good kind of tired, the one filled with a solid day's work doing something that didn't feel tedious. And so Adam watched, waited, for Ronan on the porch, where he could watch without expectation or distraction.
His fingers itched to check the ring that had been burning a hole in his pocket for days. Adam had a plan, a thoroughly plotted and soon-to-be-executed one, that involved convincing Ronan to get in the car and drive out past their home, where he could give him a reading in a deck full of Lovers cards. He just had to find the right moment, the day where it felt perfect. Somewhat spontaneous sounding, but ultimately neurotically organized, and very Adam Parrish.
Opal screeching about her hand, however, pulled Adam right out of that daydream, making him a beat too late to assist in the splinter removal. And Adam just stood there, stunned into some kind of trance. Between Ronan's playful tenderness while kneeling to Opal's height and the picturesque backdrop of the Barns, Adam felt like he couldn't breathe. He was overwhelmed with so much love, it was consuming every other part of him.
"Adam!" Opal squealed, holding up her thumb. Adam tore his intense gaze away from Ronan, to inspect it. But sensing Adam might do the same thing and bite it with his face too close, Opal snatched her hand away, pulled it close to her chest and ran inside the house.
It was so normal, so perfect. Adam seemed visibly distressed as he turned back to Ronan. His plan was falling apart, because everything about this was screaming now, now, now. "Ronan, I—"
A long day's work might have made Ronan a little slow and soft. He watched Opal turn her attention to Adam and then run away like a paranoid weirdo with a shithead smile, sure, but it was a pliable one. It died though, when he spotted the discomfort on Adam's face. He stood up and crowded closer, his eyebrows snapping together.
"What is it?" he grunted. "What happened?" He took a second to look out from the porch, trying to figure out what he'd missed. Everything was quiet still. Picturesque. It frustrated him that something was apparently going to ruin that. "I knew today was going too fucking well."
Oh no. He was making Ronan worry, and that was the opposite of what he was feeling, what he was thinking, what he wanted to do. This was why he planned things, so he could prepare for fucking up and then not. Adam was panicking; no one told him that after talking about it like it was an inevitability, proposing to Ronan was still making him sweat.
"No, no, nothing happened, nothing bad. Listen, just..." Adam was instinctively reaching for Ronan. This was usually because physical contact tended to be the fastest way to get his point across, in a language they both could understand, despite Adam's lack of experience in it—to calm, to comfort, to explain more adequately than what words could. Adam was searching for the right ones, but deciding to propose now was throwing off his rhythm.
But it was like instinct, his body moving in a way that he had been denying for months. Adam held Ronan's rough hand between both of his, and sank to his knee. Because why wait? Why had they ever waited? This place, this moment, was the one he kept seeing, and wanted to keep being a part of. It was home; Ronan was his home.
"I love you," Adam said between one gulp of breath and another. "You know I do. I hope you do. But I'm going to tell you, and keep telling you, until you get sick of it. And—" The ring, he should have grabbed it before, but he was digging for it now. "Shit, I'm doing this all out of order, I had a speech ready."
Ronan's shoulders dropped from their tense raise at Adam's insistence nothing was wrong, but that left him pretty fucking defenseless when his boyfriend took a knee. His eyes went wide. It wasn't like this was a shocking event that they hadn't talked about a ridiculous number of times in the last year. He'd just expected it to be him. That was the plan. And yet, Adam was on a knee and saying I love you like a big sap and--
"You had a speech? I--Fuck, hold on." Ronan kept his hand in Adam's but leaned out over the railing of the porch and shouted for Chainsaw. "Do the thing! It's time to do the thing!" There was a distant and possibly petulant caw and then nothing.
"Goddamn it, Parrish." Ronan's heart was racing and a dopey smile was fighting for control of his face. He dropped down to both knees. "You're supposed to be the patient one," he said fondly.
Hold on was not what Adam expected while proposing to Ronan. Confusion flooded his face, and that terrible little voice in the back of his mind threatened to make an appearance. But Ronan hadn't let go, he had just called for Chainsaw. That was good, that wasn't rejection, but then his mind stuck on something else strange: What was the thing?
Adam attempted to get his proposal back in his control, fruitlessly trying to recall the words he had practiced late at night in the office in Boyd's, where Ronan wouldn't hear him. But Ronan was crouching down and this was throwing him back off track. This was why Adam kept his spontaneity to a minimum; his boyfriend was a variable he hadn't accounted for to be consistent.
But god, Adam could still protest. The whole point of being the one to do it was to prove that Adam was just as ridiculously eager. That of all the people Adam wanted to spend the rest of his life with, Ronan was the easy choice. He always had been.
"Yeah, well, that's certifiably untrue. I can be impatient, I've had my moments. And I think I've been really patient with—God, you're making me look bad here," Adam said, half serious and half teasing. His expression was soft but intense, full of that kind of fierce love he held for Ronan.
He held up the ring, without a box—he thought Ronan would notice something bulky in his pocket—between them. "You're not supposed to be kneeling too when I do this."
Ronan's eyes followed the ring and then snapped back to Adam. "Fuck that. I'm exactly where I want to be."
He'd really hoped Chainsaw would get her shit together before this, but in her defense, she'd only been training in this particular trick for a few weeks. The ring and Adam's beautifully fierce face was a distraction anyway. Ronan grabbed Adam's wrist and brought the ring closer to his face before he kissed Adam's knuckles.
"You don't have to do the whole speech. Just tell me the cheesiest bit," he smirked against Adam's hand. "The part I get to tell everybody later when we have to tell this story five hundred fucking times."
Part of Adam wanted to be exasperated by Ronan's stubbornness, but it was difficult to be anything but amused and adoring. His mouth against Adam's knuckles was a close second, and not helping Adam remember what to do. Every emotion was warring inside him—nerves trying to overrule embarrassment which was trying to be soothed by excitement and love. So much love that Adam couldn't imagine years ago holding that inside of him for another person. And yet, here he was.
"Maybe I want to do the whole speech. I'm the one proposing to you. I'd say next time, you should be faster, but there's not going to be a next time. This is it, just you, only you," Adam said, crowding into Ronan's space. It was a little awkward shuffling on knees, but Adam wanted to be closer. "And all of it was cheesy, there was shit about how nothing we've done in the past year and half was supposed to happen, and you and I have been through so much that I could have never predicted. But I've gotten through it because of you, with you."
His practiced words were coming back to him now, but most of it didn't matter. Ronan knew, he had to by now. All the insecurities and doubts were just trying to deter them from the truth: they were meant for each other, they always would be, no matter what came at them.
Adam took a deep breath, a steady calm coming over him. "It won't be the same, but it'll be just as good. Better, even." And then he was smiling, wide and bright, as he added, "if you'll marry me."
Ronan liked this edging closer plan. He copied it, trapping Adam’s knees between his so he could get as close as possible.
“That was only like moderately cheesy, babe,” he teased, soft and warm as he pulled the ring out of Adam’s fingers and stuck it on his hand. It had rainbow rings that looked wooden and darker rings at opposing ends. It was the most beautiful goddamn thing he’d ever seen and it was just a fucking ring. “I was gonna dream fireflies to spell out marry me asshole in the air. I had a singing shopping cart ready. I was still deciding on Latin poems to recite while playing the bagpipes.” He stopped joking long enough to stop staring at the ring with a dumbfounded joy and aimed it at Adam instead.
“I love you. I mean, shit. I love you.” No snarky additions, just Ronan at his barest self, heart in his eyes. “I’d marry you a hundred times if you let m—” Ronan’s answer was caught off but an abruptly close caw and Chainsaw swooping in under the awning of the porch to land on his shoulder. Her big wings smacked them both in the face. She had a oven mitt in her beak. “Jesus Mary. Seriously? Does this look like the fucking box to you, dork?” Ronan snatched the mitt out of her mouth and showed it to her but scratched under her chin anyway. Even if she was a big fat failure. "Go, try one more time."
Seeing the ring in a box was not nearly as thrilling as seeing it on Ronan's hand. He had ideas about how he would feel putting it on, the look on Ronan's face, the look on his own.—but his hands were nearly shaking now with anticipation.Too much, too much all at once. God, his face hurt from smiling; he didn't think it was possible.
That was until Chainsaw swooped, all feathers and wings, into their cramped space. It took Adam a second too long—proposal brain could do that to a person—to realize what was happening. But as Ronan told her to try again and Chainsaw responded with a gwah flew off, Adam's eyes narrowed, suspicious and amused.
"Wait, you trained her to get a ring? Are you trying to propose to me?" Adam asked, sounding almost offended that Ronan was trying to one-up him in a battle for marriage. Competitive asshole Adam Parrish wasn't going to let his own competitive asshole boyfriend beat him to the punch. The ring was already on Ronan's hand, so technically Adam had done it first. Though did that count as a yes without actually saying it?
"I want the mitt, " Adam said, holding up his hand for Ronan cover. "I want to say yes to marrying you with an oven mitt on as my ring."
"What, you think you're the only one who can propose?" Ronan laughed, watching Chainsaw spin out of the porch up over the top of the house. She was going the right way at least. His eyes dropped back to Adam and his outstretched hand. He just needed to buy himself a little time. He held the mitt up out of Adam's reach and leaned in to kiss him.
"It's a dirty fucking oven mitt, Parrish. It's not romantic. I want...." Reaching up with his free hand, he threaded his fingers into the hair at Adam's nape, pulling his head closer until their foreheads touched. "I wanted you to have romance, Adam. Something beautiful and sappy for a goddamn change. You had to drag my half-dead, black-blooded ass to safety," he whispered forcefully. "I just...I want to give you the life you deserve."
Chainsaw wasn't back yet. Ronan rolled his eyes affectionately and lowered the mitt until Adam's hand. "If you'll have me."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," Adam said, closing his eyes as their foreheads touched. He wanted to keep kissing Ronan, he wanted to pour every single ounce of love he could into every touch and every word. It had been building for so long, and Adam had only managed to piecemeal it out, like he was saving it for something. If there was ever a time, now was it.
"I'd do it again, and again, and again. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, Ronan. It's not about deserving, it's about wanting. You already give me a life I didn't expect, a life better than I could have imagined. And I want a life with you, in every way possible. If I deserve anything, it's to want something and get it. And I want you." He kissed him then, hungry and dangerous, needy and unrefined. There it was—all the love he had, all the love he wanted to give, all the love he thought couldn't exist inside of him.
His hand was in Ronan's shirt, and his mitted one on his cheek, and god, it was ridiculous and perfect. This was yes, right? This was him saying yes? Adam realized he wanted no uncertainty in Ronan, no confusion when the high of the proposal wore down. "Yes, yes, yes. A hundred times, a thousand—"
A petulant cawing interrupted him, and Chainsaw had landed on the porch beside them, a box in her claw. She tilted her head to the side, expectantly, at Ronan as if to say is this what you meant? Adam glanced at her and then back to Ronan with the same look.
Ronan felt dizzy. His stupid grin was starting to hurt his face, so he was only too happy to put his mouth to more direct use. Adam’s words poured through his thoughts like liquid hope. He didn’t need an engagement to trust his life was going to be with Adam. But new memories from home, and new near death experiences, had rattled him enough to appreciate the ceremony of it. The promise. He trusted Adam’s word. And he damn sure trusted his own. When he said forever, in front of God and family and whatever the fuck else happened to be watching, there would be no doubting he meant it with every breath left in him.
He tried to follow Adam’s mouth even as he backed away. “A thousand, huh? Cool your jets, I only have the one…ring,” Ronan finished lamely as Chainsaw smacked her beak against his arm. “Good job, trash goblin.” He kissed her feathered head and snuck her a treat out of his pocket, kept there pretty much for this exact purpose. Trading the treat for the box, he popped it open to show the ring inside. “I could make a thousand if you’re really nice to me. I don’t know where the fuck you’d put them all,” he joked, looking up and down Adam’s body without really disentangling from him.
“Come on,” Ronan said softly, holding his hand out. “Take off the dumbass mitt and let me do this for real. We only get one shot at this, cause you’re stuck with me forever now.”
"If I'm really nice, huh?" Adam asked, softly, watching Ronan's exchange with Chainsaw. The practiced ease in the trade off made Adam warm in an unexpected way. It wasn't that he didn't believe Ronan would ask him to marry him, but they had talked about it so much that it felt like there would be no surprise left. But clearly the training was going to be a strange and glorious thing; Ronan had already started making it reality. Maybe even before Adam.
Adam snuck another kiss, he couldn't help it. Ronan holding open the box with the ring in it did something to Adam's whole being; his chest felt vice-tight, his breath caught in his throat, and the word forever made him lightheaded in a good way. This was real, he was so so awake. "Okay, wait, wait. You already have yours on," Adam said, as he took off the mitt and grabbed for Ronan's left hand.
"Let me just—I want to put it on you." Adam wasn't asking, he was just doing, sliding Ronan's ring to his knuckle and holding it there. Not quite on but not quite off. He exhaled, long and low, like he was about to just from the ledge in the quarry. But Adam wasn't scared, not like he was about heights, because he knew Ronan was going to be there, catching him, jumping with him. He didn't have to do anything alone, neither of them did.
He held out his left hand. "I'm ready," Adam said with absolute surety, before he added, with his own secretive smile, "Omnia vincit amor, nos et cedamus amori."
Adam’s bossiness had always been a turn on and it wasn’t less so now – with him using it just to take the ring off and put it right back on again. Ronan laughed, tenderness just as present in his eyes as humor. He didn’t struggle, why the fuck would he? But he did stare at the ring for a long second like it was somehow different now that Adam put it on himself. Rolling his eyes at his own sappy brain, he grabbed for Adam’s hand.
“Wow, pulling out the Virgil. And people think I’m the dramatic one,” he teased, pressing a quick kiss to Adam’s hand before slipping the ring on. He brushed his thumb over it. He wasn’t especially surprised they’d both gone with a wooden rings vibe. Cabeswater had been a life-changing fixture in their lives and there was all that shit about putting down roots. Adam’s ring was darker, woodsier colors. It looked good on his tan skin. Ronan brushed his thumb over it and met Adam’s eyes. “Aere perennius,” he murmured, pulling Adam in to breathe the next word into his mouth. “Promise.”
"I figured Cicero might be overdoing it in this instance. Would you have preferred a poem from Catellus instead?" Adam asked, teasing as Ronan inspected the ring on his finger. Adam's hand felt both lighter and heavier with it on. A solid reminder of what it represented. Not that Adam needed something tangible, but he had been so wrapped up in things that were real, that he could touch. His very analytical mind still clung to rational thought even amid the supernatural. Words, he knew, were good, but not always enough. Now they both wore something that was a promise to themselves and to show to everyone else.
Adam smiled against Ronan's mouth as he whispered the word against it. "Promise," Adam echoed back. He couldn't stop smiling. Everything about him felt too huge to contain in the moment, and he started laughing. Then he was kissing, laughing and kissing at the same time. Adam was undoubtedly, ridiculously, deliriously happy.
Between one kiss and the next, Adam said, "We better get started on telling the story five hundred fucking times. I think Gansey is in the kitchen."
"Listen, I love you…" Ronan vividly remembered the first time he'd thought I'd set the world on fire for that smile. The feeling flared up brighter now, impossibly bright with the sound of Adam's laugh rolling across his skin. He pressed a few more kisses to Adam's mouth, then at the corner of his lips and along his jaw.
It was a distraction technique so he was able to duck down and put Adam over his shoulder in one smooth move.
"...but Gansey can fucking wait. We're going upstairs and sealing this deal with a whole lot of obnoxiously loud sex."